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Sushi Recipes: Making Sushi Rice The Easy Way

My second blog in the sushi recipes series, this one is about making sushi rice from scratch in a rice cooker. Sushi rice is a little different from Jasmine rice in that it’s short-grained and has more starch. This makes it sticky and workable, especially in rolls. You’ll be surprised at how easy making sushi rice is. And when in doubt make sure you watch Jiro dreams of sushi. A must see for a sushi fans.

Making Sushi Rice

This recipe was adapted from the Sushi Cookbook, which taught me in short order the subtleties of making sushi rice at home. The ingredients will make one quantity of rice that you can use for 2 uncut large rolls or 16 nigiri sushi. You’ll need five basic ingredients:

Wash the rice throughly until the water comes clear. Add the rice and water into the rice cooker (the easy way) toss in the kelp and cook until the rice is done. Immediately remove the kelp to make sure that the rice doesn’t get bitter. And the kelp itself is edible, so you can treat yourself with a snack while making sushi rice. Let the rice cool down a bit. In the meantime mix the rice vinegar, sugar and salt in a heated pan and stir until the sugar dissolves completely. This is officially your sushi vinegar. Using a wooden rice paddle gently cut the rice from side to side (without mashing) while slowly stirring in the sushi vinegar. Do this to bring the rice to room temperature and you are done!

Don’t feel like making sushi vinegar? No problem. You can buy pre-made sushi vinegar and now all you have to do is cook the rice and mix the sushi vinegar in. Even easier.